Krissy Waton's Staging Area

This production felt more like a grass roots first attempt instead of a 10th anniversary race from a nationwide racing company.

We are experienced runners and ran a strong, smart race, but ultimately had to adjust our timeline, buddy up for many routes, and felt we were behind the eight ball from the start because…

1) We were assigned a start time that had us finishing 4 hours after the finish line closed. I was not impressed with the organization and communication of this racing company. I contacted customer support ten days, four days, and two days ahead of the race date to remedy our late start time and was not contacted until 7:30pm the night before the race, which ultimately required us to reprint pace calculators and assign ‘buddy-up’ legs in the eleventh hour at a printer station our hotel fortunately had. Also during the race, notifications and safety alerts were apparently sent out, but only one team member in our other van received those updates. Certainly sending out text alerts team-wide is possible. Only because our teammate forwarded those messages to us were we kept in the loop, and that’s only when cell service was available.

2) We did not feel safe running alone on dark roads/trails at night and alone. There were often no other runners in sight and cell service was spotty or non-existent. We were told to run with our phones, but many times this “safety attempt” was for naught. I would suggest racing chips that allow runners to cross timing pads at various mile markers to monitor their progress and whereabouts and I would suggest more concentrated start waves so runners are indeed logging miles with other runners in sight. I also think the race leg routes should be password protected for registered participants only. Someone who wanted to genuinely harm a runner could easily browse the Ragnar website course info and have 200 miles of turn by turn directions of where runners are going to be within a 36 hour period. God forbid a runner was attacked/assaulted, but by the time their absence was noticed they’d already be forever gone. Not trying to sound dramatic, just practical. Even our local running group doesn’t publicly post our weekly routes.

3) Other glitches included an an error on the pace calculator spreadsheet that no one at race command was aware of. Thanks to a Facebook conversation a few teams were made aware of this and could adjust things accordingly ahead of time.

4) On numerous incidents a leg’s race notes indicated there would be water stations at which a runner could replenish their supply, but these ended up not being there or were empty. In some cases there were an insufficient number of water stops. During Saturday’s heat this proved to be particularly difficult for exhausted runners completing their last routes on already tired, depleted legs. Based on my personal observations, fellow #12 runners indeed needed additional support on leg 36. Such was the case with legs #10 and #32 as well. We can only carry so much water/fuel on our body and these legs were indicated as a ‘no-van support’ leg. In the way of support, porta pottys should also have been accessible at EVERY exchange (ex: exchange 23 did not have anywhere to use the bathroom before an 8.8 mile route)

5) There was not enough parking at the finish line. One race volunteer speculated the parking issue was a result of many Van 1 participants hanging out at the finish and not vacating enough spaces to make way for Van 2 runners. But of course Van 1 participants are going to stay…our team goal was to cross the finish line together. Our parking passes handed out in the goody bags proved useless and more parking around the city should have been provided.

6) With regards to the rental van discounts provided through Ragnar…while the discount significantly helped our team stay on budget, it would behoove everyone if each rental agency would allow all 12 drivers to be named. We rented through Enterprise and only 10 drivers could be named. Avis would allow us to name all 12 drivers but it triggered a significant price increase. Just something worth considering to see if that’s workable or negotiable as you partner with various companies.

Overall our time together was fun. We supported each other as needed, solidifying to all of us that running is not a solo sport! I hope this feedback allows you to run a safer, more efficient race.